


New

by PJVilar



Category: The Outs
Genre: College, M/M, Making Out, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:52:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PJVilar/pseuds/PJVilar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So. Are you new?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	New

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eudaimon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/gifts).



“So. Are you new?”

Jack looks up from reading the style guide, making little penciled notes on the side of a magazine order postcard that was lying on the floor. It’s the Features Editor, Mitchell-not-Mitch. He studies Jack carefully, not like he’s making a judgement exactly but. . . no, kind of like he’s making a judgement. Like he’s never seen anyone quite like Jack before and he wants to understand him.

It’s the first time Mitchell really looks at him, and Jack feels it all across his body. He sets his pencil down and tries to look cool. He probably fails.

“I’m sorry?”

“Are you new?” Mitchell enunciates, a little harsh but he’s almost smiling now. He steps back a pace and leans against the empty desk opposite Jack. There are other people in the newsroom for the orientation, but it kind of feels like they’re alone. “I mean, a freshman, or a transfer or whatever. I mean, you’re a good writer and I haven’t met you before and I thought I’d met all the good writers by now. so I was wondering if you were. New.” He pauses and pushes his glasses up his nose. “To this school.”

“No,” Jack says slowly. Mitchell has a nice mouth. He didn’t notice that before. He did notice the nice ass. “Just new to, you know, goals and achievements. And coping with style guides,” he finishes, waving the guide in the air.

Mitchell puts his hands in the pockets of his cardigan and takes them back out again. He hesitates for a second, then pulls a vacant chair right over next to Jack and sits down. He takes a pen out from behind his ear and starts making big stars next to some of the headlines.

“Don’t get hung up on this stuff,” he says, circling a passage about proofreading. “You’ll never get started, and you’re talented, and I want to assign you to something kind of big, because you ask the right questions, but we need to get you up to speed. So just, this and this and this.”

“Thanks,” Jack says and it might as well be “Kiss me.”

It’s a few weeks before that happens.

Of course, it happens because of success. Jack has never particularly cared about success, he just wanted to avoid failing. It’s other people who pushed him toward anything like success. Tom, who said while he was a great smoking buddy he wasn’t going to get a degree in it, and his advisor, who suggested trying out for the newspaper in the first place.

And now Mitchell, who sits in the newsroom with Jack on a Friday night when anyone with any sense of place realizes this is a college and they are therefore halfway to drunk by now. Mitchell sits shoulder to shoulder with Jack, and a red pen, and he circles some sentences and crosses out some paragraphs but all the while he tells Jack, no, this is good, your story is here. It’s here and here and here. You already have it. He coaxes something bigger out of Jack’s observations on the administration’s pandering to alumni with deep pockets, he makes it make sense. It’s eleven on a Friday and they actually are alone this time, and Jack says “There, there it is,” and smiles with pride and the draft copy littered with red marks.

Jack turns to look at him and he knows Mitchell is talking about the story but then Mitchell is looking at him, leaning toward him, and oh.

Their first kiss happens in a dark room with just one desk lamp on. Jack lets out a whimper when Mitchell’s lips touch his and then Mitchell’s hands cradle the back of his head, strong and specific, each finger rubbing into Jack’s scalp.

“There it is,” Jack says softly, as Mitchell pulls back.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“Please, tell me you did,” Jack says, brave enough to put a hand on Mitchell’s knee, because he knows the answer.

“I meant it,” Mitchell says quickly.

“Good,” Jack says, and leans back in.

The second time they make out, things go from lips to hands to undone zippers very quickly and when he got back to school in September, Jack had a plan. He did. He’d come out to his parents and close friends over the summer. When he got back he was going to make sure he didn’t spend the last two years of college crawling down a bong. At least not all the time. And then, he was going to play the field. Go to events on campus. Be out. And make out with hot guys. Lots of them.

But now there’s Mitchell, who’s acerbic and brilliant and whose ass looks really good in his jeans. So good that Jack spends an unexpected amount of time trying not to look. Mitchell who is kind of hot shit on campus, who’s best friends with that girl Oona who got kicked off the literary magazine and started her own as a fuck you and every story in the first issue had “Fuck” in the title and it was good. Mitchell seems to know where he’s going and he seems to think Jack knows where he’s going. He has a really soft tongue and he gives really good hugs. He looks at Jack like he’s embarrassed by how much he wants to look and then he looks some more.

So when Mitchell undoes his zipper -- once again alone in the newsroom -- Jack blurts out “I think you’re awesome”. And Mitchell stops sucking on Jack’s neck and kind of comes up for air. His glasses are somewhere on a nearby conference table and his gaze is unfocused and soft , more naked than Jack thought he’d get to see.

“Thanks,” Mitchell says uncertainly, cupping Jack’s balls through his jeans. He doesn’t move his hand but it’s obvious the thing with the talking has maybe set things in a weird direction.

“I don’t know any language where that would be taken as synonymous with 'stop touching my dick,'” Jack says, seriously hoping for a continuation of the touching of dicks all around.

Mitchell’s hand -- dammit, Mitchell -- stays still but it stays there, at least. “Did you want to talk, or--”

“I’m sorry, I’m just pretty into you. And, um. New, I guess.”

College has always felt like a churning sea and since Jack came out, he's been slowly fighting his way to shore. It feels like he just hit land, something more than lost among thousands of other people who know what the fuck is going on.

Mitchell's voice is so low, like they're the only two people in the world. “Not just new to the scintillating world of journalism,” Mitchell says.

“No. Not just,” Jack replies. Mitchell’s hand has moved but now it’s on Jack’s chest, surely feeling the hysteria of his heart through his half-unzipped sweatshirt.

Mitchell leans his forehead against Jack’s and stays there. “I was pretty sure I knew all the smart hot gays on campus by now, too. At least in my year." He moves his hands over Jack's shoulders and Jack goes easily into the hug. It feels so good, in Mitchell's arms, with his mouth right next to Jack's ear. "Imagine my surprise.”

Jack could stay here all day. He could stay here, definitely.


End file.
